What me, worry? With privacy rights, Obama worse than Bush…

So yeah, the FBI is getting set to get all new powers…which could be used to make past illegal activity by the FBI now legal, and to make new activity by the FBI as legal as they want it to be…

But one still might ask: but if you’re doing nothing wrong why worry about it?

The simple answer is these new rules would allow the FBI to dig up information on anyone they want, use it to blackmail anyone they want into being informants.

Also, it would allow the FBI to dismantle any remaining protections for people who are the sources on “low-profile blogs.” And who gets to decide which blogs are low profile?

Huh, I wonder…

From the article:

“The Federal Bureau of Investigation is giving significant new powers to its roughly 14,000 agents, allowing them more leeway to search databases, go through household trash or use surveillance teams to scrutinize the lives of people who have attracted their attention…

The F.B.I. soon plans to issue a new edition of its manual, called the Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide, according to an official who has worked on the draft document and several others who have been briefed on its contents. The new rules add to several measures taken over the past decade to give agents more latitude as they search for signs of criminal or terrorist activity.

The F.B.I. recently briefed several privacy advocates about the coming changes. Among them, Michael German, a former F.B.I. agent who is now a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, argued that it was unwise to further ease restrictions on agents’ power to use potentially intrusive techniques, especially if they lacked a firm reason to suspect someone of wrongdoing.

“Claiming additional authorities to investigate people only further raises the potential for abuse,” Mr. German said, pointing to complaints about the bureau’s surveillance of domestic political advocacy groups and mosques and to an inspector general’s findings in 2007 that the F.B.I. had frequently misused “national security letters,” which allow agents to obtain information like phone records without a court order.”

They will of course claim the new powers are necessary to: keep pace with technology, to combat serious threats, to just, you know…eliminate some minor procedural issue…because these are the things they always say…

Tired old record played on tired old record players…

Now, I would also like to add this, and feel free to throw me into the conspiracy portion of the internet if you like, but nonetheless…many people often examine any new erosion of privacy rights not through the way things are now, but through to the way this country could drift towards, and that being said, as Congress continues to cede control to Wall Street and large financial institution, as they continue to speak to the concerns of their country’s citizens with a collective shrug (unemployment benefits, home loan fraud, deregulation of commodities leading to the rising price of groceries and oil)…as they continue to do nothing about climate change (even though the Pentagon has done their own study and label it a threat to National Security)…as they continue, essentially to consolidate power into the hands of government institution and agency, and the wealthiest Americans and corporations…well, they understand this is just beginning to make Americans angry, and this anger is likely to grow and to one day, possibly foment acts against government institutions…

So, it would seem that over the past three Presidential Administrations…all of this eroding of privacy, what would be blatantly illegal even fifteen years ago…ten years ago…five years ago…while this is not necessarily some grand scheme of control, it is a bit by bit consolidation and anticipation of what could someday be necessary…should Americans really get upset when they finally wake up and realize that yes, they are being truly screwed, by Republicans and Democrats…

Present day erosion of American rights and privacy are “aces in the hole,” perhaps necessary for the government to identify and combat the potential for wider domestic unrest in the future.